The Kenya Red Cross is giving a chance to primary and secondary schools to enroll their students for their training programs for either medical or non-medical programs in first aid and fire management courses.“What children learn from us are life skills, which will be useful to them for a long time,” said Ann Kinoti, who is in charge of the training program. “This means they will be able to handle any emergency be it medical or not that they will encounter without panicking.”

The training includes techniques ranging from CPR, basic medical conditions, controlling heavy bleeding, how to put out a fire and how to help someone dealing with shock. It is either conducted at the school or at the Red Cross headquarters in South C, Nairobi depending on where the school administration prefers. “The school administration tell us what they would like the students to learn, the number of students who will take part and where they would like it to take place; the school or our headquarters, ” said Kinoti.

There are two training programs; the junior first aid training for primary schools and the basic first aid training for the secondary schools all of which are one day courses. “They are short but we ensure that students learn the must-know skills such as what to do when someone faints,” she said. “But we also have longer programs like the paramedics course which takes up to 14 months and at the end of the each training course the students are given first aid certificates.”

The program is not only limited to schools, they also offer training to companies who are interested in teaching their staff basic medical techniques in case of an emergency in the workplace. They also have out of school programs and school holiday programs.

The charges are Sh1000 per student, for schools that are outside Nairobi, they have to carter for the trainers transport. Red Cross Kenya can be reached on; 0703037000.